“Glad you chose that spell,” I remarked.
Shaw nodded. “Aye, mine own nose thanks thee as well, Wizard.”
“You are welcome,” Galen said. “I felt it prudent. Our prior visit was a unique and profoundly unpleasant experience.”
The mustard yellow dirt and grey flagstones of Keshali’s courtyard materialized into being around us. As before, the area was covered with the bodies of slain wyverns. Liam, the only member of our group who hadn’t been here before, took a step back in horror.
“Dayna, I had thought of your work as a place of death,” he said, with a shudder. “That pales by far compared to what I’m seeing here.”
“I feel much the same way, actually,” I admitted. “I’m used to seeing death neatly laid out on a slab. Or at least one, maybe two bodies at a time in the field. This…this is like an open mass grave. It’s something beyond my experience.”
Over a hundred wyverns lay about the courtyard, contorted in their final death throes. Their snakelike forms were either scrunched forward like overcooked shrimp, or lay arched backwards as if still suffering excruciating perimortem agony. Leathery wings lay crumpled along scaled sides, many torsos still showing extruded organs bursting from rotting bellies.
In the time since my first visit to Keshali the bodies had continued much further along the putrefaction cycle, though not quite the way I’d expected. The low levels of ambient moisture had slowed the rate of bacterial decay, the exposure to heat slowly dehydrating the exposed reptiles into wyvern jerky.
Yeah, that thought made my stomach feel even happier.
I rubbed my hands together as if to warm them from an unseen chill.
“All right,” I declared. “Let’s take a minute to really look at the scene. Let me know if you see patterns, or something that sticks out. It could be with the bodies, or the environs, anything. Doesn’t matter how small.”
Shaw grunted assent, while Liam nodded acknowledgement. None of my three friends moved to breach the boundary of the Wizard’s spell. They took no more than a step or two before squinting at the scene or sniffing the air.
“A moment, if you please,” Galen said. “As I mentioned before, I have some magical items I wish to give you. I fashioned them with respect to your recent experiences. Rather than react to likely upcoming events, I felt it would be wise to arrive prepared.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that,” I said, though part of me wondered what he considered ‘likely upcoming events’.
The centaur began by rummaging in a pocket of his burgundy jacket. The nose-tickling scents of cumin and coriander perfumed the air as he brought out a small leather bag. He shook out the contents. A quartet of stones the size and color of little pieces of charcoal tumbled into his palm, followed by three more that looked like cat’s eye marbles.
“The four ebony rocks are a second set of ward stones,” Galen explained. “After all, my understanding was that you had already expended your first batch on protecting Lady Richardson’s demesne.”
“That’s an elegant way of putting it, but yes, you’re right.”
“Indubitably. Now, as for the feline-looking glass spheres, they are the combined work of myself and the Protector of the Forest. Specifically, they are ‘banishment’ spells. Should you run into any more Ultari in your world, contact with any of these orbs shall automatically invoke the spell.”
“I’ll put the ward stones to good use,” I promised, as the Wizard shook the items back into the bag and handed it to me. “Personally, I’m hoping that I don’t have to use the others.”
“As do I. But the Ultari are simply too dangerous for you to be weaponless should you encounter them again.”
“You don’t catch me disagreeing with you there,” I sighed.
With an effort, I put the prospect out of mind as I turned my attention to the landscape surrounding our little group.
The multi-story heap of ruined stone that roughly matched the bulk of Fitzwilliam’s palace lay directly in front of us. Two high mountain peaks loomed further overhead behind the main building, casting a V-notched shadow across the dusty ground. The building where Bonecarver, wearing Sir Caltrop’s flesh, had emerged to taunt us sat off to the side. Next to it lay a sight that chilled me even further.
The raised platform that still held the Ultari demon-stones.
Roughly carved stone pedestals marked out a semicircle atop the platform. A kind of spidery wizard writing adorned the bases. Looking like car-sized masses of used-up chewing gum, ugly grey stones squatted atop three of the pedestals. Two others lay shattered to pieces on the platform itself, testament to the power of Galen’s magic during our prior battle here.
Liam shook his head as if to clear it. “My nose is worse than useless now. But my ears still work fine. I hear no furtive scurries, no gnash of tooth nor buzz of wings. There aren’t any carrion-eating animals here. No birds. No insects. Nothing.”
“Yes, I noticed that as well,” I said. “In all this time, nothing larger than bacteria has disturbed the crime scene. That’s almost unheard of.”
Galen gestured a second time as he murmured a magical phrase under his breath. He rubbed his chin, perplexed.
“Apparently, there is a type of protective shield at work. It covers just the immediate environs inside the walls. It is very old and extremely weak…” His shaggy eyebrows raised in surprise. “And it utilizes a rather strange sort of magic...”
“What about demonic magic?” I suggested. “We did run into Bonecarver and the Ultari here, so that’s what I would expect to find.”
“As did I. However, I believe that this is a type of magic that I haven’t encountered before. Given our recent history, that may not be a positive development.”
Shaw made a chuffing sound as he snapped his beak. “I know naught of the magic used here. But mine own eyes see what these creatures were doing whilst they were struck down.”
“And what was that?”
“Fleeing.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected that. Grimshaw went on.
“Dost thou see the trails left behind by the wyvern?”
I shook my head. “Your eyes are still better than ours for seeing detail.”
“Each of thy corpses’ trails lead back to a single point.” He lifted a forepaw and extended a talon. “All emerged from that point.”
‘That point’ turned out to be the largest of the openings in the building before us. There were no doors. The edges of the entryway were ringed with crumbling rock, all gnawed upon by countless years of sun and wind. Grimshaw continued, moving his leonine paw to indicate the area around us.
“Thou might note that no dead wyverns lie to our rear,” he said. “Nor to our sides. Whatever foe defeated these creatures struck them down before they got any further than three score yards from their exit.”
“And what foe could do that?” Liam muttered.
“None that I have faced yet. But this I know for sure. ‘Twas not a battle that happened here. ‘Twas a slaughter.”
“I still suspect a form of death magic,” Galen said. “Bonecarver proved quite adept at using this type of weapon on my father, and came within a hoof’s strike of killing him with it.”
I grimaced at what I had to do next--but it had to be done.
“Well,” I said, halfway resigned, “there’s only one way to tell for sure. And I’m going to take care of that right now.”
Chapter Seven
I moved to Galen’s full saddlebags and took out my forensics case, a gowning kit, and a couple of prepackaged rolls of polyethylene tarps. “Let’s move back a few yards to put some distance between us and these bodies, I need room to set things up.”
We found a spot at the inner edge of the thick walls running around the courtyard’s edge. Several large blocks of stone had fallen away here, and one quickly became a makeshift table for my equipment while another provided a place for me to sit on to gown up.
I didn’t have my stompy gothic boots of
doom with me. Instead, I slipped on shoe covers over my boots and made sure the elastic holding the covers on fit snugly around my ankles. Slipping a transparent face shield down over my eyes, I complemented it below with a surgical mask. Once I finished my fashion statement with a hair net and a pair of nitrile gloves, I was ready for battle.
“Galen,” I said, “I think I need you to lift the Shield of Turning. I need all of my senses for this job, even if it gets unpleasant.”
Resignedly, the Wizard made a turning gesture with one hand. The air rippled with an unseen shimmy. The smell of the wyvern bodies hit us like a punch in the nose by a boxer holding a gone-off steak in his fist.
“Ugh,” Liam groaned. His hooves clattered as he moved restlessly, dealing with the odors. At least he didn’t appear ready to lose the grass in his stomach.
As I’d hoped, the smell of decay had already passed its zenith. It wasn’t exactly as fresh as the air from a mountain meadow, but on the Chrissie Scale of Stinkiness (patent pending), I’d call it no worse than a two-and-a-half out of ten.
“Anything else?” Galen asked. “Hopefully something less malodorous?”
I indicated my package of cleaning wipes and wire-rimmed bags. “I could use your help setting up my disposal center.”
“Of course.”
“Shaw, Liam,” I called. I held up a couple of rolled-up polyethylene tarps. “I need to do a halfway thorough examination of a couple of these bodies. I need your help in dragging the corpses back here. We’ll use these sheets to do it.”
Liam swallowed hesitantly, but he bobbed his head alongside Shaw.
I walked further into the courtyard and did a quick inspection of the closest body. It lay curled to one side, head arched painfully back on its slender neck, organs scattered next to the split-open mass of the torso.
Once again, I saw several minor differences between this wyvern and the ones I’d seen before. The reptiles that had attacked both Fitzwilliam and Ironwood’s lance near the Griffin Lands had looked nearly identical, at least to my untrained eye. They were either green or black, with snakelike bodies.
The wyverns here in Keshali were slightly smaller, even accounting for rigor and dehydration. Their wings sat higher up on their backs, allowing for more flexibility around the shoulder joint. More tellingly, their foreclaws were slender and finger-like. In fact, these structures were so delicate that I couldn’t see them being used as heavy slashing tools.
But if they’re not for combat, my brain objected, then what are they used for?
I put that question aside for now and spread out one of the tarps next to it. Squatting next to the body I placed my gloved hands on its back. It felt surprisingly warm to the touch, though that was from being out in direct sunlight on a stone surface. I gave it a nudge, then a full-on shove.
It didn’t move. Of course.
I braced myself and gave it the hardest sustained push that I could.
With the sticky schlorp! of a piece of rotted meat pulling loose from a tile floor, the body flopped in a half-roll onto the poly sheet. For a moment, the sour-dry smell of kicked up dust blocked the increased odor. The Stinkiness Scale went up a notch or three for a moment, making me reel.
“Guys,” I said, as soon as the smell dissipated, “can you drag this back closer to my equipment?”
Shaw grabbed one corner of the polyethylene sheet in his beak while Liam went to the other corner and looked at the burden with distaste. Spotting the big metal grommet sticking up from a corner flap, his one green eye sparkled for a moment with inspiration.
The fayleene bent forward and, with surprising ease, managed to hook one antler nub through the metal-lined hole. Then he tugged backwards along with Shaw to slide the tarp and its burden out of the kill zone and over to where I could work on it.
They repeated the feat twice more as I picked out additional bodies from different points in the courtyard. I wasn’t sure how to tell gender in wyverns, so I selected ones with substantially different builds. Once I had all three lying next to each other, the griffin and fayleene stood back as I pulled out my forensic tool kit and went to work.
“These creatures all appear to have been ruptured from the inside,” Liam ventured. “Could that be a clue?”
“Sort of,” I replied. “We saw that before as well, but it’s not a battle wound. The gut flora, along with other bacteria, start breaking down the cells of the intestines after death. That produces methane and hydrogen sulfide gas, which makes the abdomen swell and burst open.”
“How charming,” he muttered.
I began my examination of the first body from the top down. Wyverns I was familiar with had wedge-shaped heads that seemed to be mostly made up of spikes. But these here in Keshali had wider skulls, implying a larger braincase. After a moment, I stopped to look over at the other two corpses.
“Now that’s interesting,” I mused.
My friends didn’t come any closer, but they all leaned forward to see what I was talking about. I moved to one side and pointed at a pair of glistening trails resembling dried egg white. The trails started at the inner corner of each eye and ran down towards the toothy snout.
“What is it?” Galen asked.
“All three corpses show the same signs of excess rheumic production, as well as profuse lachrymation. That is, a heavy trail of dried mucus. And tears.”
“Could it be that thy foes felt remorse before expiring?” Shaw called over, as I grabbed a transparent plastic sample bag and scraped a crust of the dried stuff into it. “I feel no affection for wyverns, but surely, there are more heroic ways to die!”
“Heroic or not, they were suffering from some kind of mucosal irritation.”
I continued down the creature’s face. A spume of the same material had bubbled up, then dripped from the toothy mouth, drying along a trail marked by gravity and the way the corpse fell. I moved lower, noting the lack of contusions or other markers of distress, until I got to the heap of dried organs protruding from the midsection.
At least this would make my next task a little easier. Using forceps and a scalpel, I was able to pry the exposed stomach free from the mass and slice it open. Again, I was surprised as I poked around inside before repeating the same task on the other two bodies.
“I may have just solved one minor mystery,” I said, as I sliced off another tissue sample and bagged it. “When we were here before, we were puzzled how so many wyverns could live here without being discovered.”
Galen nodded. “In truth, there is so little to consume in the Hinter Lands that they would have raided my people’s herds long ago.”
“Based on the lack of stomach contents, what they were consuming is obvious. The answer is ‘nothing’. It could mean that the entire swarm had been in a kind of hibernation.”
He considered that for a moment. “A logical possibility. Obviously, the wyverns killed this city’s inhabitants – or simply showed up to infest these ruins – and decided that this locale was remote enough that they would not be disturbed.”
Liam canted his antlers at the Wizard. “Does that not leave the question of why they went into hibernation in the first place?”
“That is a valid concern you raise, friend.”
Once I completed my external scan, I got out my rib cutters. The wyvern’s ventral scales were tough, but the abdominal rupture had been so severe that I could just follow the tear up the middle of the chest plate. It took some doing, but I finally managed to snip high enough to locate the remains of the creature’s heart and lungs.
Which is when I spotted something truly disturbing.
Chapter Eight
Wyverns had five-lobed lungs, but I only noted that in passing. What grabbed my attention was the fact that the decaying organ was intact and swollen as if it were packed full. I squeezed the bottom lobe between two fingers. It gave reluctantly, as if it were filled with moist clay or mud. I cut into the organ and a sludgy blue fluid the exact shade of fountain pen ink ran out.
It went without saying that I took a sample before palpating the heart muscle. It felt normal, and when I cut into it, only a thin dribble of greenish goo came out. My friends waited patiently, watching my every move as I repeated the procedure on the other two wyverns, with the same results.
I sat back after I was done and considered what I was seeing. Irritation of the mucous membranes around the face told me a bunch of possible stories, but the presence of heavy fluid in the lungs narrowed things down a bit. The wyverns had each suffered massive pulmonary edema. Specifically, the non-cardiogenic kind, since their hearts remained clear of thick, choking fluid.
Edema meant that these creatures’ lungs had filled up with fluid. They’d essentially drowned in the middle of the driest place I’d seen in Andeluvia. Which, of course, led to the next question.
How?
There were several candidates for that answer, but all the ones that came to mind didn’t fit the situation. For example, it was unlikely that all the wyverns simultaneously came down with pneumonia or kidney failure.
I explained the concept of edema to my friends as I brought the tissue samples back to my forensics case. Galen had set out my disposal and cleaning kits, so I carefully disinfected my gloves and the outside of the sample bags before disposing of the shoe coverings.
“Suffocating on dry land?” Galen asked, stunned. “One thing is for sure: Death magic does not work in this manner.”
“In my world, there are more than a few illnesses that do,” I said. “Yet none of them explain a mass killing like this. So, I’m going to see if can find some more clues.”
I dug in my case, pulling out the latest toy I’d ordered for myself. I suppose I should have suggested it to Esteban before last Valentine’s Day. Some women liked shopping for jewelry or clothing. Me, I liked going through forensics equipment catalogs and picking out the gadgets I wanted to play with.
A Warrant of Wyverns Page 4